The Heart of Nunnally
by astrocitizen
Summary: One year after disaster had fallen upon Ashford Academy and the failure of the Black Rebellion, Lelouch receives a most unexpected visitor. Will more guests be far behind?
1. Prologue

**THE HEART OF NUNNALLY: Prologue**

A Code Geass crossover test chapter

_Disclaimer: _Code Geass_ is the property of Sunrise, Bandai Entertainment, and Ichiro Okouchi. _The Wizard of Oz_ mythos and related characters are the creation of L. Frank Baum and is in the public domain. _

_Warning: Possibility of adult language and strong violence. _

* * *

**? ? ? ? ?, 2017 a.t.b.**

"Scratchy".

The word floated about through the darkened corridors of a fourteen-year-old girl's mind, trying to find something to connect itself to. It finally found a place to rest as an adjective, succinctly describing the small, slightly moist thing with the rough composition that kept sliding along one of the girl's temples. The word "licking" then appeared but, satisfied with the two-second diction lesson she'd already received, the girl choice to ignore it. She then remained unmoving, disposed to let the black void of sleep wrap itself back around her like a blanket.

A moment later, the scratchy thing suddenly stopped. The shape it was attached to moved ever so slightly to an ear, into which it began directing a series of brief yet incessant _meow_'s. In response, the girl's brow furrowed but her eyelids did not open as she was prodded back awake. The eyes of Nunnally vi Britannia – junior high student, little sister to Ashford Academy's most eligible bachelor, imperial princess in hiding, former hostage – had opened for nothing and nobody in seven years, and today had yet to show signs of being any different.

"Arthur?" she wondered aloud, as her nose picked up the smell of the cat's fur and her hearing caught the silent tread of his paws.

In response, the cat – grey with a black spot over an eye, she'd been told – rubbed the top of his head against the side of her face and then along her chin, leaving a trace of his scent behind. Satisfied that she was again marked as his property, Arthur bounded off, stepping over her back in that presumptive way cats did that most people considered cute.

Left to take stock by herself, Nunnally soon found a number of disturbing things apparent. She was not in her bed, but lying on her stomach on the floor. It was the floor of the clubhouse, possibly her room, the feel of the carpeting familiar from the number of sleepovers Milly and her friends from the student council had over the years. Said floor, however, was tilted.

She began to explore further, feeling around herself, but then yelped as something pricked one of her fingers. Kissing away the resulting spot of blood, she then started gingerly patting the floor with the back of her hand, finding, as she feared, bits of broken glass.

She found that the area right underneath her was free, thankfully. Pressing her hands beneath herself, she pushed herself up, glass bits and other debris falling from her back and her hair in the process. As she leaned on one elbow, she hooked her other arm around the back of her knees and pulled her legs up to her chest, slowly arranging herself in a sitting position.

In the distant, Arthur mewed again, demanding food or milk or someone to play with him. Elsewhere, she heard wind coming through open windows.

_No… broken windows,_ she corrected herself, hearing the soft rustle of drapes and remembering the bits of broken glass. There were probably other, more dangerous shards lying around here somewhere.

Cupping her hands to her mouth, she called out. "Lelouch?! Miss Sayoko?!" After a moment's pause, she moved onto calling for C.C., then Milly, and finally the ubiquitous (and ever-desperate) "Anybody?!"

Nothing. Just Arthur's continued mewling, and the echo of her own voice.

A shiver of fear ran through her, the likes she hadn't felt since she'd first awoken to find herself blind, her legs mangled. Actually, it was the weeks following that she was reminded of, the prison that her own body had become eliciting tantrums and panic attacks whenever Lelouch and, later on, Suzaku weren't around. The primal fear of being left alone, abandoned to fend for herself. At such moments, even the presence of Suzaku's snide cousin had been a relief.

Nunnally clenched her teeth as she forced herself not to hyperventilate. Rather than rapid-fire breathing, she made herself take one deep lungful of air, hold it, and release it just as slowly, again and again, just like Miss Sayoko taught her to. Satisfying she wasn't going to start screaming or pass out, she began to review her situation again, this time going past where she was to how she'd gotten there.

At first, she thought all that came to mind had been a dream. She could see again in her dreams, but increasingly they were murky and vague as to almost be without sight as during her waking hours. As such, memories of being stuck in the dark, tumbling helplessly in the air as furniture, knickknacks, even her own motorized wheelchair slid away from her, then around her out of reach almost mockingly, was easily misconstrued as being another nightmare.

It was enough to get her memory working, however, as she remembered the emergency declared on campus. "There was a big storm," she said aloud, glad for any noise even if it was her own voice.

Earlier that day, Milly, in her role as school president (for life), had announced on the P.A. that a massive storm front was rolling up from the south, and that classes were cancelled. Within hours, Miss Sayoko was wondering aloud if she shouldn't tape up the windows as a downpour lashed against the sides and roof of the clubhouse. Nunnally was hard-pressed not to dissuade her, as the howling wind alone sounded like the souls of the damned were just outside the walls. The thunder, meanwhile, was so loud and rapid she felt like she was hearing the cannons fire and shells burst during the invasion of Japan all over again.

They'd been alone but for Arthur, the tom cat mutually shared as a pet by the student council. Her brother had chosen to use a sick day to skip his classes, apparently having heard of a visiting nobleman who didn't know chess as well as he thought he did, and even less about when to stop doubling-down. She wasn't sure what "doubling-down" meant exactly, but with Lelouch's chess proficiency, it would likely mean a lot of money for the school, the upkeep of their adopted home, maybe even some "mad money" for themselves.

C.C. wasn't there, either, maybe having gone with Lelouch, maybe not. She came and went as she pleased. Sayoko had joked about having used the opportunity to air the pizza smell out of Lelouch's room if not for the weather.

Nunnally couldn't help but think they were always planning something, those two, Lelouch's insistence that they weren't engaged notwithstanding. All the same, he and C.C. had both been out during the storm for whatever reason. That left her with just Arthur, who'd been the mysterious something licking her head, and Sayoko, who was…

Wait. Shouldn't her maid be here, too? If so, then why didn't she respond to her yelling?

No sooner had the though crossed her mind when she heard a sudden tell-tale whirring sound from across the room, which died down as quickly as it started as she heard Arthur cry out.

"My chair!" It must still be in the room with her, and Arthur had accidentally tripped the joystick on it. As no apparent help was forthcoming, Nunnally decided she had to crawl over to where she'd heard its wheels spin by herself.

While many people thought she was paralyzed from the waist down – a step up from those who simply _ass_umed that she was "slow" – she'd never suffered a spinal injury. The gunshots that crippled her had only struck her legs up to about mid-thigh, damaging ligaments and severely fracturing her leg bones. This left the muscles in her hips unaffected, and she could still use the ball-and-socket joint where her femurs connected. While it would take years of therapy and delicate operations to repair her legs to any degree, she could still balance herself on her hands and knees with some difficulty. As such, she figured she could push/pull herself along the floor.

Sitting back on her heels, she pulled on her sleeves, taking out the slack in them so she could bundle the cuffs around her hands. Bowing over, she laid her arms crosswise in front of her and slowly swept them out in wide arcs, pushing anything out of the way, barely feeling the glass prick at her through the cloth. With that done, she walked forward on her hands until she was extended over the cleared floor, then hooked an arm behind her knees to pull her legs back underneath her again. Repeating this process, she slowly made it across the room to her powerchair, which was lying on its side.

It took a few minutes, but she was able to get it standing again. Clearing the area around one side of it, she then used the spokes of the wheel facing upwards as handholds until she grabbed onto an armrest. Tugging at it, her added weight caused the chair to tip over, Nunnally falling back as it righted itself with a loud thump.

Whatever had happened to the clubhouse, even such a minor impact was a bad thing. There was a distant sound like wood bending and cracking, and with a quick but violent shake, the room tilted just a bit more. Nunnally lay frozen on the floor until she could feel the building settle again.

As she did so, she heard someone. It wasn't a voice, just a moan followed by a weak cough. Quietly, she called out again, but heard no response. Satisfied the floor wasn't going to cave in or something, Nunnally then crawled into her chair, pulling herself up by grasping onto the armrests, the edge of the cushion, anything until she was seated again. Experimentally, she fiddled with the joystick and was pleased to feel it move about again, its electric motor still working.

"Electricity?" she muttered to herself, then gasped as her memory was jogged. _I remember now… the power went out! _

It had been late at night, the storm still going on with the rain and thunder. In spite of that, Nunnally had heard the continuous slight buzz of the lights suddenly stop, along with the feeling of their heat upon her. Surprised but unshaken, Sayoko produced a flashlight from somewhere and said she was going to fetch some lamps stored on the other side of the clubhouse. Nunnally distinctly remembered calling for her to hurry back as the maid left her room. Just minutes later, the bottom had fallen out of Nunnally's world.

There was a sudden lull in the rain outside, accompanied by a strange shift in the air that caused her ears to feel like they were about to pop. The entire room had then lurched violently like an earthquake had struck, accompanied by a monstrous howl of wind unlike anything she'd heard before. There was a massive sound in the distance, almost like an explosion, but she'd barely heard it over her own screaming. It seemed to her like a massive hand had picked up and was shaking the entire building.

_My nightmare… about me and my room spinning around… it was_ real_!_ she realized as she felt along the walls for the door.

The wallpaper was warped and torn in place, she found. She hissed as her hand was jabbed again, this time by something wooden she realized as she yanked out a splinter with her teeth. Feeling carefully again, she found it was a stud that had snapped and was poking through the plaster.

_What condition must the support beams be in?_ she wondered, remembering the tremor she caused just a minute ago.

Things didn't improve any when she found the doorway. It was wide open, but she soon found that was because the sliding door had been knocked off its track entirely by what appeared to be her chest of drawers. Sadly, it was upside-down and leaning in the doorway, blocking it.

Nunnally's attempts to push it didn't budge it in the least. She next tried to lighten it first by pulling out the drawers, but found that too many were jammed by their contents and couldn't be removed. After all her hard work, she was still trapped in her room with no way out. Giving into her emotions, she sat back in her chair, laying her head in her hands as she started crying.

From a short distance, right out in the hallway it sounded like, she heard someone cough and moan again. This time she could tell it was a woman's voice, but ragged-sounding. She said something but her speech was muddled and incoherent.

"Sayoko?! Is that you out there?!" Nunnally fairly screamed. Only more muttering answered her.

Almost certain it was Sayoko, her maid, bodyguard, and confidant, Nunnally wiped away her tears as her mind raced on what to do. Grabbing the handle of one of her drawers, she yanked at it until it opened a little, a few things within falling out through the small gap, some she caught in her hand. Tossing them through the doorway, she nodded as she heard them hit something on the floor. As she'd expected, the door was now lying out flat in the hall, right in front of the archway.

Pondering a moment, Nunnally came up with an idea to get herself up and over the chest of drawers without disturbing the house any further. Putting her modesty aside, she undid her waist-cinchers and bundled up her skirt as she pulled her gymslip off over her head. After taking a moment to smooth down her blouse and half-slip anyway, she then began rolling up her uniform lengthwise like she was making a towel whip.

Twisting the ends of her improvised rope around her forearms, she gripped it strongly before flinging the center out towards where she guessed the corner of the bureau was sticking out into the hallway. It landed on something and Nunnally tugged on her ends, smiling as she felt it hook on one of the legs. Pulling with all her might, she slowly dragged herself off of her chair and onto the slanting front of the bureau. Continuing, she pulled herself up until she reached the top, or upended bottom rather, propping herself up with one of her arms.

Sliding herself along the bureau's lacquered surface, she got to the edge out in the hallway. Rearranging her "rope" so it looped over both legs on that side, she then slid off the edge, hanging by the ends wrapped around her arms. Allowing them to give bit by bit, she lowered herself to the floor, eventually feeling her butt make contact with the misplaced door. Pulling her legs back underneath her again, Nunnally then set about collecting her gymslip, letting one end go while giving the other a snap until her improvised rope finally fell loose from the bureau's legs.

Sliding herself along the surface of the door, Nunnally eventually met carpet again. As before, she worked to move aside debris as she alternatively pushed and pulled herself along the floor, this time using her bundled-up gymslip like the bulldozer's blade instead of her arms. Directing herself towards the sounds of erratic breathing, she only moved a few yards, about the distance to Lelouch's room, when she hit someone. It was a person, lying on the ground, who coughed again at the sudden collision. The figure muttered again, the voice having an odd gurgling tone but still identifiably feminine.

"Sayoko? It's me, Nunnally!" she said in half a panic. As she felt around, she found the woman's arm and cradled her hand gently.

Immediately upon doing so, it was all she could do not to drop it and shrink back. She could tell that it wasn't Sayoko. In fact, the skin itself felt odd somehow, even beneath the sticky coating over it.

_Blood._ Its texture was tell-tale enough, but there was also its smell. There was no mistaking the coppery tang it gave off, not now, nor years before when her brother and Suzaku had insisted they were just walking by a garbage dump.

As it was back then, the air was copious with it. The strange woman was bleeding profusely and would surely die any moment. Putting aside her misgivings, Nunnally grasped her arm as she reached over and, finding the woman's head, attempted to slide her gymslip beneath it to give her final minutes some comfort.

"Lo… casta?" the woman muttered. She mumbled something that sounded like "Is that you?" in bits and pieces.

"Yes," Nunnally lied, "it's me… Locasta." Whoever she was, she should at least think a loved one was with her.

There was a moment's pause, and then the woman grunted, an accusatory edge entering her voice. "Nice… try. She'd never have it… in her to do this… in a thousand years!" New life suddenly flowed into the woman's hand as it gripped Nunnally's own like a steel vise.

In the past, Nunnally had been able to tell whether someone was lying to her or not when she held their hand. Now, however, alien images like a series of photographs flowed unbidden through her mind's eye. It was over in moments, ending just as Nunnally had begun to realize what she was seeing were images from the dying woman's life.

As such, she only caught the last few "snapshots," all from the woman's point of view. Somehow, she'd been high in the air, and had noticed a series of multicolored lights, like the auroras Nunnally had read about occurring far up north, just out of the corner of her eye. The woman had turned towards these lights, only to see a two-story, somewhat palatial-looking building (or a large section of it, based upon the torn framing and crumbled brick-and-mortar coming off one side) as it barreled through the air at her. Too little, too late, the woman brought up her arms before her defensively as a set of bay windows filled her vision. The last image was a look through these windows, where the dozens of pizza boxes flying about told Nunnally that she'd been looking into Lelouch's room.

The woman released her grip as the images in Nunnally's head stopped, the world becoming unending darkness again. As she massaged her hand, the girl had the inexplicable feeling that the woman had experienced something similar from her, perhaps not images, but instead sounds and smells, maybe even her emotions at the time. She was answered by a hissing sound escaping the woman's lips.

"Slain… by a blind sylph." A moment later, she erupted into an almost hysterical laughter, only for her to cough and begin heaving badly, her entire body shuddering. For her part, Nunnally just tried to scoot back on her haunches from the terrifying woman.

Breathing heavily, a wet coughing sound announced a wad of bloody phlegm being spat out before the woman began talking again, calmly this time. "Oh well… better a stranger than that conceited Kalinda. Better anyone than…" Her voice trailed off with a frightened shiver. "All right, you nauseating little virgin. My shoes are all I have left… they're yours, for however long you can keep them." The last came out with a derisive bit of chuckling.

Nunnally's ears then perked as she heard feet painfully shuffle, then something solid land on the floor, at the other end of the woman's body. _She's kicking off her shoes, at a time like this?_

"Wait! I don't want your shoes!" Nunnally cried out. These were the last few moments of this woman's life, and she had a bad feeling she'd never find Lelouch on her own. "I don't want anything… I just want to go home!"

This only brought out another burst of snickering. "Why, child," she said, feigning motherly affection with her voice, "you _are_ home. You brought it with you, remember? A crooked little girl, in her crooked little house."

She made to chuckle again, but was instead seized by a slight tremble, causing a mild cracking sound that Nunnally now knew had to be shards of glass embedded in her, mostly along her torso but a few she feared had pierced her eyes. The woman then laid still, just a slight wheeze heard as the remaining air in her lungs passed through her lips.

This time, Nunnally didn't try to stop it as her breathing turned into rapid gulps. She was lost, terribly lost, the images from the dying woman leaving no doubt the storm had somehow ripped away and moved part of the clubhouse. Where was she? Had the clubhouse landed outside the settlement? Was she even still in Japan?

A horrific thought then occurred: Was she dead? Was this some part of the hereafter, some form of it no religion had ever considered before?

"I can't be dead!" she shrieked, trying to drive the idea away. "How could I still not move or see if I was?!"

She couldn't be dead, she couldn't be lost either. She just _couldn't_ be. So many things were going right finally. So many things had started to change. She was happy with Lelouch and all their friends. Suzaku was back in their lives and, as of a few weeks ago, so was Euphie. There was a special area – not another ghetto – her sister was building for the Japanese to live in safely. She and Suzaku were planning to marry once it was complete, Nunnally was certain of that. The happier world Lelouch had promised was finally beginning. She had to be alive to see all of that.

Outside, all had been silent for the longest time. The dust had settled and the sky cleared from when the strange house fell to the ground. It had just stood there, looking dilapidated, occasionally a loose shingle tumbling from the roof. Slowly, regardless of the sobs echoing from somewhere within, footsteps could be heard cautiously approaching the listing house…

**END OF PROLOGUE **


	2. Chapter 1

**THE HEART OF NUNNALLY: Chapter One**

A Code Geass crossover test chapter

_Disclaimer: _Code Geass_ is the property of Sunrise, Bandai Entertainment, and Ichiro Okouchi. _The Wizard of Oz_ mythos and related characters are the creation of L. Frank Baum and is in the public domain. _

_Warning: Possibility of adult language and strong violence. _

* * *

**Area 11, 2018 a.t.b.**

The woman's head snapped back, banging against the post which already dug into her back, at the sudden impact upon her. She let loose the briefest of grunts before her head flopped forward, hanging loose just as the rest of her body went limp. Only the excessive length of chain used to restrain her to the post kept her still standing.

The same went for the other Japanese alongside of her, their bodies now slack as blood pooled around their feet. If there was a death rattle to be heard between them, it was obscured by the echo of automated gunfire playing through the air. It was this same barrage that just seconds before had pierced flesh and bone, all but vaporizing within each of them the heart, lungs, and any other organ errantly hit. It all happened so quickly, an onlooker could be forgiven for thinking that death had been instantaneous, painless.

Satisfied that they were all really most sincerely dead, a man in an officer's uniform and cape nodded curtly to the soldiers assembled for the impromptu firing squad. As they obediently shouldered their arms, he stepped forward to stand between them and the remains of the condemned, eyes locked onto the camera lens before him.

Everything had been caught by a nervous-looking TV news crew. They were nervous because, although they were Britannian subjects through and through unlike these natives, they still had just witnessed a half-dozen defenseless fellow human beings get shot to pieces. Furthermore, the entire tableau, transmitted live about mid-day no less, flew in the face of rules on broadcasting standards, and their station was likely to catch hell for it.

Good luck finding anyone willing to tell that to the uniformed man, though. As faintly ridiculous as he looked, with his custom-made teal uniform and combination walrus moustache/muttonchops facial hair, he was still Count Calares, a high-ranking nobleman and, furthermore, the current colonial governor of Area 11.

"We all need to understand that this is not discrimination, but rather, it's differentiation!" he bellowed at the camera, while somewhere in the world Noah Webster rolled over in his grave at this misuse of synonyms. "The Elevens revealed themselves to be a dangerous, belligerent race. They followed the scoundrel Zero and took up the name Japanese. It's our duty as Britannians to control and educate them!"

Several miles away, Lelouch Lamperouge – vice-president of the Ashford Academy student council, loving brother, underage gambler, and a number of other roles he was no longer aware of – wrinkled his nose at the viceroy's ostentatious display. Rolo, sitting next to him on their borrowed motorbike, said nothing as he idled the engine, waiting for the light to turn green. Sitting in the shade of a webwork of overpasses, monorails, and construction work happening around them at the edge of the Tokyo Settlement, the Lamperouge brothers had watched the mass execution play out on a large HD screen situated at the crossroads, where it usually functioned as a digital billboard.

A moment before that, Lelouch had been silently ruminating over the closing gap between the present and graduation, and his hesitance at having to enter the job market. Now his thoughts were in a whole new direction, as he was faintly reminded of events from over a year before. While returning from one of their gambling expeditions, he and his friend Rivalz had caught a live broadcast on one of the "jumbotrons" that dotted rooftops throughout the settlement. It was by the viceroy at the time, a royal prince no less, making a flamboyant public display of agony and contrived sympathy over continued insurgent violence. It had been the prince's last public appearance before he was assassinated by a terrorist, Zero, who had looked like he would turn Britannia's world upside down.

For awhile anyway.

_The Elevens lost,_ Lelouch reminded himself grimly. _They didn't have the strength. If they'd only kept quiet and behaved, this place wouldn't have been downgraded to a reeducation zone. Zero, he was a fool. No matter what you try, the world is just a... _

He shook his head, cutting that line of thought short. If rubbing the Elevens' relapse on the societal ziggurat in the public's face was going to be typical of the new colonial administration, perhaps returning to the homeland would be for the best after all. It would mean saying goodbye to Milly and their other friends, but he had to think of his brother's safety first.

Besides, they'd been freeloading on the Ashfords long enough.

_The clubhouse is practically unused, except for the student council's work, and that could be done in just about any old conference room. If not for Rolo and I rooming there, Lord Reuben might have just had it knocked down, instead of going to the expense of rebuilding, after the typhoon was over. _

He felt a chill go up his back, perhaps more so than he really should have, as he remembered the chain of events from a year ago. A massive tropical storm had suddenly erupted out of the Pacific, little more than a hundred miles south of Tokyo. It expanded, intensified, and practically engulfed Area 11 with torrential rain, cyclonic winds, coastal flooding, the whole nine yards. It was the first time he'd ever understood the Elevens' old term, _tsunami_, before. It had only been by dumb luck and nothing else that he and Rolo… Rolo…

"Is something wrong, big brother?" the fifteen-year-old asked, glancing sideways at his big brother. Lelouch, in response, directed his attention away as he took a series of deep breaths.

_Not again,_ he thought to himself as he broke out in a cold sweat, his blood pressure escalating without any provocation. _I thought I had these episodes under control! _

As much as he despised the thought of visiting the school guidance counselor for psychiatric help, he was running out of options. Surely it was preferable to looking at his brother and, every so often, feeling the same kneejerk repulsion one had for a cockroach. Hell, the first month or so after the Black Rebellion was quashed, he kept having to run out of the room, an inexplicable compulsion to strangle Rolo where he stood coming over him.

"Nothing, Rolo," he chirped as he looked over the cityscape. "It's just… this trip is making me think of how lucky we've been before." He turned back his head to show that he was smiling, his emotions back under control. Well, his homicidal urge, at least. Internally, he was fraught with worry over what the reason could possibly be. _Some form of survivor's guilt?_ he wondered.

The storm had been dotted with funnel clouds that here and there would touch down, forming intense yet fleeting tornados. They would sweep across random areas before they dissipated, vanishing as quickly as they'd appeared, leaving damage but thankfully no fatalities. At the height of the storm's intensity, however, one such twister had come down at the school, tearing up trees and lawn before it wrenched off a large section of the clubhouse, specifically the wing where his and Rolo's rooms were. Luckily, neither of the brothers had been inside at the time as they'd been…

Lelouch blinked. He always came up against a grey wall in his mind whenever he tried to remember where either of them had been during the typhoon. It was like the emotional detachment he felt for his memories of Ashford being occupied by the Black Knights days later, only worse. Even the _Avalon_'s last minute rescue of him and the student council from a trigger-happy Eleven felt more like he'd read it in a book or been told about it than something he'd actually experienced.

He shook it off, allowing the wool in his head to resettle. Wherever he and Rolo had been and why, it was surely preferable to what could have happened had they been inside the clubhouse. Nothing of the lost section – not a single brick or a bit of furniture – had ever been found, which sadly included the student council's mascot, Arthur. That had been hard on the student council. Ironically, given Arthur's antagonism towards him, Suzaku was probably hardest hit by the cat's apparent death.

_Or so one can imagine,_ he corrected himself.

They'd last seen Suzaku Kururugi, the academy's one and only Honorary Britannian student, just prior to the storm breaking out, and only heard him speak over his Knightmare Frame's loudspeaker during the Black Rebellion. Beyond that, they'd seen neither hide nor hair of him in the past year, all despite Madame President's continued letters to him.

For his bravery in repelling the Black Knights, as well as confronting Zero alone at the end, all questions as to the former Japanese boy's loyalty and sense of honor were dispensed with. He'd even been elevated to the Knights of the Round, a first for an ex-Number. His posting had shown little actions that had reached the news, however, other than one or two incidents along the border with the Euro Universe.

_Of course, that doesn't mean he's not busy. The life of the Knight of Seven must be a hectic one. _

As quickly as a smile had been summoned by the wry thought, it disappeared as Rolo zipped along a bridge – one of a series of two-lane side "streets" – that carried them the final distance to their destination: Babel Tower. A skyscraper decorated with pink balconies and mock-gold filigree, it was a combination nightclub, casino, and hotel, among other venues for the connected… and corrupt.

If not for boredom, Lelouch would have stuck to his upper crust clubs and the thrill-seeking chess players found there. He'd heard tales of this place, and he half-worried of what he would see. As far as Suzaku had gone up the ranks in Britannian society, the rest of his people had fallen poorly. And it was places like these where one really saw how bad it had gotten. Whereas before the Empire had "merely" exercised the right of victor's justice over an area's indigenous people as usual, the imperial mandate where the Elevens were concerned was now, "I'll give you something to cry about!"

This occurred to him as he looked up at the grandiose building, the sky broken by a large zeppelin floating overhead. Orange, it was decorated on the side with some manner of corporate emblem, which from the angle he was looking he couldn't tell if it was a cow or a deer. The way it moved, he wondered if it was attempting to dock with the tower by using as a mooring mast one of the pylon "gargoyles" that crowned Babel's rooftop. As Rolo drove them into the parking garage and out of sight of it, he allowed himself to forget he even saw the airship.

Once they parked, his concerns over what they would see rebounded. Not for his own sake so much as Rolo's. He was such a sensitive boy, and Lelouch always fretted over him.

_But, I have to cut the apron strings someday,_ Lelouch thought. Giving him one last chance to just stay with the bike, or perhaps go back to Ashford, he then said aloud, "You can come with me but I warn you, you have to watch out. Because today I'm going to be breaking a law."

"Don't get caught," Rolo advised him, his tone somewhere between playful and earnest.

_Crap. Well, I tried._ As he tossed his goggles into the sidecar next to his crash helmet, he proclaimed to his brother that the police didn't scare him.

"Why do this?" Rolo then asked. As if explaining his curiosity, he added, "I mean, you're not even doing this for the money, are you?"

"Need you ask? It's because I want to battle more challenging opponents," he said, lying through his teeth. Lelouch then led the way to the elevators, clutching in one hand a travel case. Inside of it was a chest set, his personal weapon of choice.

Several hundred feet above him, a desperate man was doing the same.

* * *

"Do you really think you are going to need that?"

The pilot's eyes never left the instrument panel as she spoke to the man entering the control cabin. Japanese, he was long-faced and wore a black military-style uniform. A moment before, he'd holstered his automatic pistol, having finished inspecting it and confident all was in working order. If Captain Urabe was taken aback that she'd known about it, he showed none as he answered her question.

"A soldier always carries a sidearm into combat, even when he already has a rifle, or is inside of a tank," he explained. "A Knightmare Frame devicer is no different."

Urabe moved to the comm. system as he said so and looked down at the zeppelin's pilot, a teenaged girl with waist-length, chartreuse hair. He tried not to frown at her choice of garb, but was only moderately successful. Instead of a standard Black Knight uniform, C.C., always the contrarian, was dressed in a white suit with gold accents. It looked too close to something a Knight of the Round would wear for his taste.

Satisfied that their vessel was nicely settled over the casino, C.C. turned and speared him with a look. The past year had given the former JSDF officer enough time to develop a slight reading on her moods, so as indifferent as she seemed in tone and voice, he could tell he was on the receiving end of her being critical. "Allow me to rephrase the question: Do you really think you will have to use that?"

He frowned as he looked back in the ship's hold at the KMF's parked there and the paltry number of Black Knights who remained to await his orders. Of the Four Holy Swords, he'd been the first to really place his trust in Zero, not only to take up the Japanese Liberation Front's cause but also at long last fulfill it. That being said, he'd been about as distant from Zero as anyone else in the organization, baring his supposed mistress C.C. and his right-hand "man" Kozuki Kallen. He had absolutely no knowledge of one Lelouch Lamperouge other than snippets of commentary he heard about the latter girl having to deal with a smug jerk at the Britannian school she went to.

As such, he hadn't felt the emotional punch in the gut that Kozuki must have upon seeing Zero unmasked. In fact, like many, he preferred to remember Zero as a hero and that he supposedly went down fighting like one.

He had time to reassess events in the ensuing months, however, and now worried about the prospects of restoring Lelouch's memory, as C.C. claimed she could. As much as this Britannian student was probably the resistance's best bet for victory, there was a question as to which part of the boy they would get. Would they have Zero, the master strategist with the plan to methodically tear down the Empire, or Lelouch Lamperouge, the despondent brother who, in his frenzied rage over his sister's death, just wanted to see the world burn?

"I don't want to," Urabe answered diplomatically. "It all depends on how Zero acts once his memories are restored."

"I'm not going to 'reset' his brain back to that day, Captain," C.C. explained with an air of annoyance. "Undoing the Geass-spell upon him will only awaken his suppressed memories. He will still have experienced an entire year since the storm happened. A year of relative peace, unconnected to the resistance, with little more than an undefined feeling of loss for poor Nunnally."

"For whom?"

"For Nunnally… his sister, remember?"

"Ah, of course. Thank you," he said, trying to curb the smile he felt breaking out. That tiny slip, a rare display of honest compassion, from the bizarre girl was as amusing as it was humanizing. _'Poor Nunnally'. Kallen would have given her eyeteeth to hear her say that. _

"All the same," he said, getting back to business, "there's the possibility of him suffering a relapse. If he's no longer rational, then he'll be far more a liability than an asset." Fingering an auto-injector full of a mood-stabilizer in his pocket, a twin to one Kozuki carried, he hoped that would be all they needed once Lelouch was awakened, otherwise… He let the thought trail off as he unconsciously rested his hand on the butt of his gun.

"Zero seemed to do some of his best work when his world crumbled around him," C.C. responded mirthlessly. To rub salt into the wound, she added, "And I remember very little being said about it when he threw the march on the settlement together."

Paling slightly at the memory, Urabe responded tersely, "Well, maybe we _should_ have."

The Black Knights' leader had always been disconcerting to be around, from his masked countenance to his secretive comings and goings. In the aftermath of the typhoon, however, Zero's behavior quickly became downright... erratic. Small annoyances would provoke a hysterical screaming fit that would end just as quickly, the commander apologizing for his manners before walking away. He'd stand for minutes at a time, facing some direction without doing or saying anything, presumably staring off into space from inside that helmet of his. During his final speech wherein he announced the creation of the United States of Japan and their intention to take back Tokyo from Britannia, his usually eloquent delivery was marked by words running together and pauses punctuated by a choked sob.

These and more had provided all the signs that Zero was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and the Black Knights had completely ignored them. As if the typhoon hadn't been enough, what happened at the S.A.Z. site had lit the spark that would make Area 11 go up like a tinderbox. Rioting by the Japanese, even those who regularly stood back with their heads down while the occupying Britannians did whatever the hell they wanted to, had escalated quickly. The Black Knights had to take advantage of the situation before some other group, more radical and with less a chance of success, did. For that they needed Zero, and so Lt. Colonel Tohdoh, Kirihara-_dono_, and the other leading members of the Japanese insurgence put aside their misgivings on his state of mind.

At first it had looked like he was still as dependable as ever, whipping up an expertly plotted strategy to surround the settlement from different vantage points, occupy or sabotage municipal establishments, then put siege to the Viceroy's Palace. It was even money if the goal of the latter move was to take one or both of the princesses hostage, or just execute them. A chip off the royal block, Cornelia had long proven herself a dedicated authoritarian, and the Japanese hated her as much as she hated them. As for Euphemia… well, at the time, many people were just as angry with her, regardless of her excuses.

Zero had also proven still adept at pulling aces out from his sleeve, arranging the pivotal move of sabotaging the structure of the Tokyo Settlement itself. The settlement was constructed atop an artificial plateau made of conjoined floor sections, which could be allowed to break free without dragging the rest down in case of earthquake or an attack. He'd somehow managed to seize control of this system, causing a massive chunk of the plateau to collapse, taking most of the military defenses with it. The Viceroy's Palace had survived, thanks to a separate foundation that anchored it securely to the earth, along with a handful of other segments that Zero had spared, including the school which Kallen (and, in reality, he too) attended.

It wasn't until the _Gawain_ was deployed that they began to worry. With the focus of his hate within sight, Zero had broken ranks and flung the experimental super-KMF at the remaining forces like a maniac. With C.C. piloting and Zero managing the weapons, the _Gawain_ would alternatively blast Cornelia's personal guard with the Hadron cannons, or like a temperamental child with a doll, would actually grab an enemy Knightmare and use it to swat its own comrades.

Finally, there was his confrontation with the viceroy herself, whose expert piloting skills for once had done her not. Cornelia had proven able to handle the slower-moving _Gawain_ at first, but Zero, unmindful of the damage he took in the process, eventually managed to overpower her, ripping her Gloucester limb from limb, leaving her defenseless. This was followed by several minutes of radio silence, which at the time some had suspected was Zero murdering the princess with his own two hands. The reality, C.C. later explained, was that he'd used his Geass to interrogate her, the full details even now she had yet to divulge.

As such, Zero had been out of contact with the Black Knights when a monstrous Knightmare-craft, the _Siegfried_, appeared. His voice was different, rambling and unhinged in his own way, but the so-called Knight Giga-Fortress's devicer was still recognizable as the missing leader of the Purebloods, Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald.

_Oh, pardon me, my lord,_ Urabe thought sarcastically, remembering that the Purist had been posthumously elevated. _It's now_ Duke _Gottwald, for having singlehandedly turned back the tide of the Black Rebellion._

Well, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration. But the _Siegfried_'s appearance alone had driven back a number of Black Knights before Zero rejoined the battle. Having abandoned Cornelia in the ruins of her palace, he simply attacked, ignoring calls from Tohdoh to organize a quick flanking maneuver. Two emotionally unstable men in charge of flying, overpowered KMF prototypes was not a good thing, it was made apparent, as Zero and Gottwald slammed their vessels into each other like angry planets. As damaged as the _Gawain_ already was, Zero had given the fight his all, bringing it to an end by forcing both their Knightmares to crash in Port Yokosuka.

Even from a distance, the seaport looked like a scene from Hell, which only Kozuki was willing to go into, hoping to retrieve their commander. Urabe and the rest, meanwhile, had to deal with the Britannian military, who were down but not out. Gottwald had given them a much needed lull in battle, allowing them to regroup around freshly arrived reinforcements, the Glaston Knights, and the new Float-equipped battleship, the _Avalon_.

_One just has to look at us, and the state Japan is in now, to see how well that went,_ he mused. Major Chiba, he remembered, had placed the blame squarely on Zero for going in alone, both at the palace and in the handling of the _Siegfried_. She'd still been cursing him the day she was captured along with Tohdoh and a number of other high-ranking Black Knights.

"_Q-1 reporting… infiltration of enemy perimeter successful,"_ the radio suddenly buzzed. A moment later, Kozuki's voice came in again, sounding far less professional. _"I've been here all of three minutes, and now I'm worried we didn't bring _enough_ plastique with us." _

Urabe cocked an eyebrow in surprise while C.C. smiled curtly. Far from the urban terrorist who just wanted to see anything Britannian burnt to the ground, Kozuki had come a long way in focusing on practical goals and avoiding "soft targets" that risked civilians. As such, she'd all but objected to bringing explosive charges for this mission. The edge in her voice now bespoke of how many rumors they'd gathered about the notorious, criminal-operated hotel may have a foot in reality.

"I wish we could have called back Agent S-2 from China," he murmured, using Sayoko's official code name. "She was raised to handle these kinds of missions if what I'm told of the Shinozaki clan is true. Kozuki, on the other hand? I'm worried about her just going unnoticed, much less passing herself off as a servant girl."

Smiling, C.C. admonished him that he worried too much. "Babel Tower is filled with people who never take notice of 'the help,' Captain. As for Lelouch, even if he sees Kallen directly, he won't _really_ recognize her, just feel reminded of Kallen Stadtfeld by her appearance." He was about to ask if she was certain, but she'd already read the question on his face.

"Quite certain," she said primly. "From our observations of Lelouch, we gathered a lot on the extent and the manner in which his memories were reconfigured. As a result of Kallen being part of two separate but equal facets of his life, one entirely suppressed while the other slightly edited, Lelouch now carries in his head little more of Kallen than a vague image of a top-heavy red-head who coughed a lot. Having all her school records, including photos in which she appeared, censored at Ashford actually helps in that regard." She was about to say more when an angry whisper came over the line.

"_I heard that, you witch!" _

"Heard what? The censorship? The bit about you coughing?" She slipped off a glove to inspect her nails as she spoke. "The top-heavy part?" When a growl came over the air waves, she continued. "I warned you to keep your center of gravity in mind. It's not my fault you kept falling over during your dance lessons."

In response to this last bit, Urabe mouthed the words "dance lessons" with a perplexed expression. Hearing no further responses from the radio, C.C. then answered him.

"That is how I know she can handle herself while she's in there, swimming with the sharks. Just as you have given her some instruction these past months, I've shared with Kallen my knowledge of dance and other fields of expertise a mission such as this might require."

"I wouldn't call it _some_ instruction," Urabe said with a hint of pride. While she still carried herself like a street brawler, Kallen had soaked up the training he'd given her in hand-to-hand combat, moves and fight tactics originally learned from Tohdoh-_sensei_ himself. Any idiot playing grab-ass down there was in for a big surprise if they attempted to pinch "Mini-Chiba" as he'd come to call the teenaged fugitive behind her back.

C.C., however, hadn't heard him. She'd been staring off into space with an air of nostalgia before returning her attention to him. "I'm not the pizza-hoovering lay-about most take me for. Well, not always," she added, smiling thinly. "With all the roles I've played in my long life, I'm really quite a walking smorgasbord of esoteric skills and knowledge, if anyone would just ask."

"Including a waitress in a casino/hotel/underground club?" he asked skeptically. Even now, he couldn't quite accept all of the weird claims C.C. made about herself, even after seeing her revive from a fatal wound more than once after run-ins with the military police in the past year.

"I've been everything from a bus girl in a greasy spoon to a _maitre d'_ at some of the world's finest restaurants," C.C. said, her voice betraying neither pride nor shame in her past. "A dice-girl for back alley _chinchirorin_, and a blackjack dealer in Monte Carlo. A clothing model and, shall we say, an 'exotic dancer'."

Urabe couldn't help it as his interest rose several points after that last bit, his face reddening slightly. "And that's… where Kallen's dancing lessons come from?"

"Actually before that," she said with a passing shake of her head. Her voice became wistful again as she continued. "I must have burnt up thirty years bouncing from one end of the Ottoman Empire to the other. Get caught, sold at auction, spend time as a harem girl, escape, get caught, sold at auction, spend time as a harem girl, escape, wash, rinse, and repeat. Not that it wasn't fun occasionally, and I did learn a few things, but still… after awhile, anything can get old." She rolled her eyes as she got up and stretched.

"Anyway, I thought it might be something useful for the mission, in addition to tricks of the trade as a cocktail waitress. Who knows? Maybe instead of all this rigmarole with your tracking device, Kallen can tempt Lelouch into one of the 'champagne rooms' and we can recover him there."

At that, a small squeak came over the radio that both of them ignored. C.C. hadn't been deliberately trying to needle Kallen with that last remark, so it didn't matter to her how she reacted this time. Urabe, for his part, was too distracted with this one girl's flippancy to coddle the other's modesty. Luckily, no more came over from Kallen's end.

"That 'rigmarole' will be necessary to keep tabs on him, and differentiate Lelouch from Rolo," he responded curtly as he left the cabin, approaching his Gekka as the Black Knights hurried to their own Knightmares.

"You still plan to liquidate the boy?"

"I'm not looking forward to it," he admitted, "but despite his youth, Rolo Lamperouge is definitely a plant, working directly for the O.S.I. team stationed at Ashford Academy. It's necessary."

"'Necessary'… as Lelouch will be if he proves unmanageable." It wasn't a question, but rather a statement, although it did probe at the Black Knight's conviction. A reserved sigh was the only response she got.

"If it makes you feel better, Kallen's actually of the same mind… more or less," she said, her tone just slightly conciliatory. "She thinks she was clever about it, but I know that in addition to that little syringe and her _Guren_ activation key, she also took along a handgun when she left."

"Kozuki's willing to—? Wait a minute…" As surprising as it was to hear Kozuki, who prided herself as Zero's bodyguard and been the driving force behind his rescue, was prepared to kill him if the memory restoration failed, a very obvious question occurred to him. _I know she has her key disguised as a cigarette lighter, and an auto-injector looks like a pen to begin with and should be easy to secrete on her outfit. But a handgun?_

"You mean, like one of those collapsible pocket pistols? A derringer?" the Japanese soldier asked, holding his thumb and forefinger up at a distance, indicating the short size of such a weapon.

"No, Captain, a standard issue pistol," C.C. clarified, pointing at the weapon on his hip as an example.

Urabe's eyes almost bugged out in response. "How is that even _possible_? That… 'disguise' of hers looks like it was painted on!"

A devious smile broke across the immortal girl's face as she answered coyly. "Oh, a little trick I came up with back when I was, as this nice young Englishman named Reilly called me, 'Mata Hari, Jr.' Needless to say, Kallen was _quite_ taken aback when I shared it with her, but eventually she came around."

She then glanced up and down the length of his body, as if making an estimate of what shape he kept himself in. "I could tell you how it's done, too, but it's the sort of thing you either have the knack for it or you don't. It helps that Kallen's still young, limber, and… flexible. You? Not so much."

Urabe turned a shade of green even as a thin stream of blood came out of his nose, dueling imagery at war in his mind. C.C., for her part, just stood there as if waiting for an answer.

"I… I have to… mission… Gekka," he finally muttered as he turned and sped-walked to his KMF.

* * *

Most people who spoke to the man had to fight the urge to address him as "Jeeves". With his meticulously combed grey hair and moustache, and austere evening clothes which looked more like a butler's uniform, the chief manager of Babel Tower could easily be mistaken for a valet of one of the attending nobles. His obsequious manner, which belied an undercurrent of resentment towards the nobles that made up the lion's share of his clients, didn't help matters either.

It looked to be another busy day (i.e., a profitable one), with crowds around about every table and nary a slot machine in sight unoccupied. There had been an interruption about twenty minutes ago by the viceroy with the televised execution of some Elevens – low-level Black Knights if His Lordship was to be believed – which would cause a minor hiccough in the day's takes. However, the sight of blood had provoked a sudden burst in interest in a gladiatorial game that was about to start, so the bets placed on that should offset the momentary drop in activity.

And after that was over, and their bloodlust was riled up, what then? All of Man's primal urges – to hunt, to kill, to mate – were closely wired together, so thankfully a fresh crop of "bunnies" were on hand. Eleven girls, ages fifteen through mid-twenties, they were called so as they were all decked out in rabbit-ear headdresses along with their high heels, stockings, merry widow corsets, etc. In short, the stereotypical attire of a high-class gentleman's club waitress.

Officially, that's just what they were: Hostesses employed by Babel Tower. The reality, of course, was they were all slaves, some grabbed off the street while others had been tricked into coming to the tower with promises of employment. They were available for either sale or rent, as a short lineup of them standing close by, whimpering as their, ahem, "assets" were being perused, could attest.

The only real down note today was the presence of the so-called Black King. Not a real noble let alone a king, he was a "made man," the syndicate's overseer of Tokyo Settlement operations, with an overinflated self-image. He'd come in that morning, claiming he just wanted a minute or two to inspect the books, and had been lounging around ever since, helping himself to free drinks, cheating at cards, and generally annoying the real customers. If the big boys in the homeland ever caught wind of how he treated the place like it was his private domain, he'd doubtlessly be in hot water… or whatever temperature the water would happen to be once his cement shoes had hardened.

_Oh, well. It's not really my problem, and not one I can fix anyway,_ the manager had long decided. The best thing to do was to stand back, say "yes, sir" and "no, sir" when prompted, and let life work itself out. A bit of wisdom gleaned from watching the Elevens and their failed rebellion in the past year.

A rolling ass-wiggle and a pair of gorgeous legs in pink-white hosiery brought his attention to a bunny serving as a waitress, a platter of cocktails balanced on one hand. A redhead with an ample bosom, she didn't possess any indicative Eleven features that he could note offhand.

_A half-breed, perhaps?_

It wasn't impossible. Ever since Area 11 became a reeducation zone, the Honorary Britannian system had been rescinded and then some, leaving Numbers with no rights and no opportunities whatsoever. Murder, theft, kidnapping, anything went so long as you weren't too obvious about it. And anyone with even a drop of non-Britannian blood in them was fair game.

The manager hadn't seen her before, but it's not like he got attached to any of the Elevens that came through Babel. She may be new, but then there was the red heart medal pinned to her corset at the thigh. It indicated that she was a valued, reliable servant and (technically) not for sale, among other possible meanings. Others such as that she'd blown through her training in the "warren," an employee-only section of the tower reserved for breaking in slaves, converting monkeys into bunnies.

_I'd imagine she did some quite expert blowing to receive that so quickly,_ he chuckled to himself, as he continued watching her go about her duties, walking in a manner that mixed seductive strutting with submissive shuffling. _Some days, I love this job._

He turned his head as the doors of a nearby elevator swished open. They were connected to the parking garage entrance, and it wasn't unknown for some nobleman or celebrity to use them to visit surreptitiously. Being secretive, of course, did not mean they wouldn't expect a fawning welcome from Babel's chief of operations.

_No, just a pair of students,_ he snorted as two boys stepped off of the lift, wearing black uniforms with golden piping. Rather than the standard necktie and blazer combo, for some reason a number of private schools in Area 11 had adopted the school uniform design that had been favored by the natives, which was based on the naval officer's uniform the Europeans had used decades ago.

"Twink," he muttered to himself as he took stock of the older boy. A teenager, near graduation age, with silky black hair, delicate eyebrows, tapering chin, and a thin, almost feminine frame. The more he looked at the lad, the more curious he became, however. Something about him drew the eye.

It was most probably his attitude. The student looked about the place, taking in the sights as all newcomers did, but otherwise carried himself with an air of confidence that many feigned but few possessed. It was not an arrogant swagger as if he owned the place like "Mr. King," just a natural self-assurance, a feeling of ease regardless of his surroundings. There was also the small briefcase the boy carried with him that made the manager wonder.

"_TODAY'S MAIN EVENT IS AN APPROVAL MATCH BETWEEN BROTHERS! WHICH SIBLING WILL WIN?! THE OLDER ONE OR THE YOUNGER?!" _

The blaring announcement over the P.A. system broke his concentration. Shooting an angry glare at a nearby speaker, the manager shook his head, deciding he'd been woolgathering enough anyway. Taking one last glance at the two students, whom he should really just shoo out anyway, he saw the elder stroll on over to the railing overlooking the arena, the younger one following him like a lost puppy.

_Ah, the fight. That should frighten off a pair of coddled schoolboys,_ he figured. While not specifically to the death, these amateur M.M.A. fights tended to be bloody affairs as the Elevens were goaded on, giving it their all in hopes of making enough money to feed their families one more day.

Not that he cared if and when things got out of hand, and they lost a few monkeys. This brought to mind the token reason Zero had given for the rebellion. _Animals… if you knew the place was unsafe, then you should have moved earlier. It's your own fault, not ours,_ he thought. Britannia controlled many things, but the weather was not one of them.

And as for Princess Euphemia and the disaster that happened at the S.A.Z.… well, as far as he was concerned, it was her own fault for being such a trusting little fool.

* * *

"We don't belong here, big brother. Let's go," Rolo said, affecting a nervous tremor in his voice even as he continued to scrutinize the two Eleven fighters. Their movements were unprofessional, driven more by desperation than genuine ferocity, and they posed no real threat. Not to himself, anyway.

His assignment, Lelouch vi Britannia, heard him speak, but did not seem to catch his words. "It's simple to figure out. Just relax." Looking up from the pathetic bloodsport below them, his "big brother" indicated some nobles seated around the railing on the other side, whooping it up. "Look there. The Britannians like ourselves are laughing and having fun. The ones who are being laughed are the Elevens. You pretend not to notice but in the end..."

_Again?!_ Rolo huffed silently to himself as the prince went off on some philosophical analysis. It was a habit he'd quickly grown tired of. Not that he hadn't gotten used to Lelouch; he was but one of the trivial demands of this mission that made it almost a vacation compared to other work he'd done.

But such frivolities weren't for a loyal agent of the Geass Order, the true kingdom behind Britannia. If that wasn't enough, Rolo also acted on behalf of the Office of Secret Intelligence. While the Knights of the Round were nominally the Emperor's swords in the light of day, the O.S.I. were quite definitely His Majesty's long knives in the night. As such, he felt it was high time C.C. was secured, and this rebellious whelp disposed of.

_Please, please,_ please _let C.C. be around here,_ he beseeched the obscure powers that the Geass Order served. Such superstitions, of course, had done little for those wary enough to have seen him coming in the past. To get results, he needed Lelouch active in public, where the rogue Code-bearer could try to touch base with him.

Thinking of something to prompt him, Rolo decided to continue playing the naive ingénue. "But then why?" he asked. As expected, Lelouch began talking again, open to any opportunity to display his wit and understanding of the larger picture, his mind however truncated by His Majesty's Geass.

"I know, but it's the truth. The Elevens lost twice. First with Prime Minister Kururugi, and again with Zero. How could they rebel when they don't have the strength?" He walked away as he spoke, only to stop as the automatic door slid open for him. Looking over his shoulder, Lelouch added, "Granted, the Black Knights had a mix of brute force and cleverness that Kururugi lacked, but the results were still the same."

His words caused Rolo to flash upon reports and audio-visual recordings of the Black Rebellion, specifically the classified, unedited versions seen only by the Director, his brother, and those among their followers they'd deemed worthy. Pivotal had been footage taken by a still-functioning factsphere of Cornelia's confrontation with Zero. After nearly killing her, the rebel seemed to finally calm down, popping open the cockpit of her Gloucester like a Pez dispenser to reveal himself to be her long-lost half-brother, Lelouch the Black Prince. After exchanging a few tense words, he'd then zapped her with his Geass.

_And for what? To find out what she knew about the assassination of Lady Marianne and the aftermath… which was virtually nothing,_ Rolo thought. Lelouch wasn't overrated as Rolo had found with many of the Emperor's children, but his pedestrian misuse of his power over Cornelia had disappointed him. _Well, at least he's consistent… Lelouch blew his little top as a child over his mother's death, then seven years later, loses it again when the typhoon cost him his sister._

He paused at the thought of the unexplained storm. It had occurred at the tail end of Prince Schneizel's occupation of Kamine Island and the Thought Elevator found there. The Emperor had allowed his son time to look around and generally satisfy his curiosity before agents of the Geass Order, posing as royal scientific advisors and archaeologists, took custody of the ruins and their safety. Not an unusual move when World of C artifacts were found, but this time it seemed His Majesty had waited too long.

Just as the handover had begun, there had been a sudden and dramatic atmospheric disturbance around the island. Within hours, a typhoon had formed with Kamine at the center of its eye, before it spread out over Area 11. Much later, the Director's Code supposedly reacted, causing him to scream in pain as the Geass sigil on his brow glared blindingly, just before the storm had begun to dissipate. Between that and the storm's gathering point, there was almost certainly a link between the typhoon and the Thought Elevator, even though Schneizel claimed to have given up probing the ruins on the island long ago.

_Or, just maybe, it was a delayed reaction from before,_ Rolo considered.

Weeks earlier, another run-in between the military and the resistance resulted in Lelouch as Zero, one of his Black Knights, Princess Euphemia, and the recently knighted Suzaku Kururugi being stranded on Kamine Island. The four of them eventually wound up within the cave where Schneizel and his men had been examining the World of C ruins, the presence of one or all of them somehow causing the ruins to become active momentarily.

Zero and his minion escaped in the confusion, stealing an experimental KMF prototype in the process. This and his "cowardly" behavior earlier, when he'd abandoned a suicide mission he'd been ordered to undertake, caused the Honorary Britannian to resign his oath to the princess. His actions had actually been spurred on by Zero's Geass, something Kururugi was told of later by no one less than Director himself. This happened at the start of the Black Rebellion, Rolo's master appearing before him right after seeing Euphemia bundled onto a transport out of Area 11 on the viceroy's orders.

As a result, Kururugi fought tooth and nail to avenge himself upon Zero and his followers. After an indecisive duel with the _Guren_, he'd even gone into the flaming ruins of Tokyo's harbor area to face what remained of the Black Knights' leader.

Rolo remembered quite clearly the recordings taken by the _Lancelot_: After finding the battered torso of the _Gawain_, Kururugi had directed his Knightmare to tear open the cockpit. He then lifted the unconscious terrorist out by his leg, allowing him to dangle upside-down. His obvious disdain then turned into cries of shock as the mask slid off, revealing Zero to be his childhood friend, Prince Lelouch.

However, Kururugi's friendship was far outweighed by the former prince's litany of crimes against the crown (and consequently against Japan, to his way of thinking). Under the greatest secrecy, the Honorary Britannian thus brought Lelouch to Pendragon, delivering him personally to Emperor Charles. In exchange for bringing his wayward son home, as well as his silence over the whole affair, the Emperor thus made him a Knight of the Round. From this posting, Kururugi thus hoped to accomplish his goal of making Area 11 his personal fiefdom, bringing equality and justice to his countrymen via the Empire's system.

_Lunatic or idiot?_ Rolo couldn't decide which the new Knight of Seven must be. Even if Kururugi succeeded someday, many of the Elevens would still see him as a traitor, and he'd have to reinstate martial law as they used their newfound "freedom" to organize fresh rebellions. What's more, any changes he made would only last so long as he was alive to serve as His Majesty's steward over Area 11, the succeeding viceroy almost certain to make the Elevens all third-class subjects again. All things considered, Kururugi would have done better to return to serving under Princess Euphemia, and leave Area 11 and its inhabitants to their own devices.

The dumbest move he'd made, in Rolo's opinion, was leaving Zero's supposedly dead associate behind in the _Gawain_. As bloodied as she was, there was no doubt the teenaged-looking girl with the lime-green hair and golden eyes was C.C. Capturing her was a must, as she was the only Code-bearer the Geass Order had information on that was guaranteed to still be relevant. All other Code-Bearers – that they were aware of, anyway – were scattered across the world, unaffected and therefore undetectable by any Geass-power that would otherwise track people. Also, there was always the chance they would pass their Code onto one of their contractors, rendering all data about them useless. As such, C.C. was the Director and His Majesty's one sure bet for achieving the Ragnarok Connection.

_Oops! Not supposed to know about that,_ Rolo thought, half-worried a fellow agent with a mind-reading Geass might "hear" him. Finding out little bits and pieces of classified information was par for the course within an intelligence agency, it just happened sometimes. But letting it get out you knew something, even a trivial amount that was meaningless by itself, spelled the end. And Rolo was certain that he knew nothing but a name.

On one of his assignments far from the prying eyes of the Geass Order or his O.S.I. handlers, he'd taken the chance of searching "Ragnarok" on the internet. All he found was some gobbledygook about the pagan beliefs of ancient Scandinavian and North Germanic peoples. It was full of weird imagery such as a rainbow bridge linking Earth to mystical realms, creatures that were half man and half animal, demons and giants formed from fire, stone, and ice, undead warriors that would chop each other to pieces then reassemble themselves afterwards, and so on. The term Ragnarok itself was the name for the imagined end of time, when the world would die in a huge battle between gods and monsters, then be reborn again, the human race reinstated by two surviving humans. The few surviving gods, meanwhile, would gather their golden game pieces and while away the rest of eternity playing chess.

_Hmph. Spending forever playing a board game. That sounds like the kind of fate that would appeal to Lelouch… and His Majesty,_ he thought, semi-mutinously. Well, whatever the Ragnarok Connection is, all he needed to know was that damnable woman was pivotal to its success.

_Women…_ Rolo resisted the impulse to shake his head. The Director had warned him of women leading men astray, that they should be seen purely as assets to be used, co-workers at best, nothing closer than that. And he'd been right as always from what Rolo had seen.

Kururugi's devotion (even from afar) to Princess Euphemia. Rivalz's futile pursuit of Lord Ashford's granddaughter. The juvenile talk that boys around campus seemed driven to concerning female students and even some of the teachers. They all allowed themselves to be distracted and waste energy that could be better spent on self-improvement and other, more pertinent matters.

It was another facet of Lelouch that he found disappointing. For all his capability, he was as easily driven to self-destructive behavior by females as anyone else Rolo had met beyond the confines of the Order. Marianne. Nunnally. Euphemia. The girls on the student council. Even sparing Cornelia's life when she was no longer of use to him. All spoke of the prince's irrational behavior where woman were concerned.

On occasion, Rolo had considered that his judgment was clouded as, frankly, he just couldn't see what the big deal about them was. They weren't even all that structurally optimal. Take those long legs they had, for example, often made worse with their inane footwear. And unless you were an embryo or a newborn infant, their various reproductive organs and related anatomy were useless. In fact, they were a potential liability, as it wouldn't take much for a good-sized pair of breasts to throw one's balance off.

All of this went through his head as he followed Lelouch away from the arena, nodding his head absent-mindedly as the former prince, former terrorist, and – by the end of the day, hopefully – former anything continued pontificating on the layout of Area 11's current social structure…

And walked straight into one of the waitresses, tottering along on her ridiculous stilt-like shoes. He came to an immediate stop, but the brief nudge was enough for the buxom girl to lose her grip, dumping a tray and the glasses balanced on it all over the floor.

As Lelouch set about helping to clean up the mess and exchange apologies, Rolo just stood back, assuming a worried stance. Internally, however, he was gloating, life having verified his assessment from not a minute before.

_Case in point,_ he thought smugly.

* * *

_Filthy Britannian! _

As much as she cursed the thuggish man leering into her face, Kallen was also pissed at herself for not being faster, as well as dropping the bug on the floor. After squeezing herself into an approximation of Babel's ridiculous "hostess" uniform, sneaking in without being noticed, busting a creep in the face and dumping him down a laundry chute, she'd finally made it to Lelouch. Her next course of action had been planned out in advance: Fake a small accident, then plant Urabe's tracer on him while cleaning up. But being with him again, face-to-face after an entire year, made everything start to fall apart.

For a moment, Kallen was back at Port Yokosuka, Suzaku having beaten her there in that damned _Lancelot_ of his. Taking cover behind some still-burning rubble of that giant pumpkin flown by Gottwald, whom she couldn't believe was still alive after she'd blasted him back at Narita, she watched as the traitor had rummaged through the _Gawain_'s remains. As Zero's limp body was pulled out, she'd started making plans either to rescue or avenge her leader, while focusing her factsphere upon him to scan for life signs. As such, she'd gotten just as good a look as Suzaku when his helmet fell off.

A few minutes later, as the _Lancelot_ engaged its Float system and flew off, the _Guren_ continued standing stock-still. Inside, its pilot was similarly paralyzed with… what? Surprise? Betrayal? Paranoia? Comprehension?

Kallen had eventually come out of it and went to inspect the _Gawain_, hoping for signs of, well, anything that suggested her eyes had somehow been deceived. Surely, it had been a mask Zero had worn beneath his helmet. Or Lelouch (_the big jerk_) had been a bystander whose body Zero had switched clothes with and left behind. Or perhaps he was a substitute and Zero had been manipulating the _Gawain_ by remote control. Anything was better than the truth: The man that she admired, had sworn loyalty to, had _fantasized_ about, was in reality that typically apathetic Britannian bastard, whose only saving grace in the world was that he'd cut his own heart out for his sister if need be.

_Nunnally…_

In retrospect, it had all been so obvious, with over a dozen incidents great and small concerning herself and both Lelouch and Zero. The final bit of proof should have been the latter's behavior after the typhoon. After spending over a day trapped by the weather, having left Tokyo for a conference with the Kyoto Houses concerning the S.A.Z., Kallen had been relieved when the cell towers were restored. This turned into horror as she learned from Shirley that a tornado had struck the clubhouse, the living quarters having been torn apart and cast to the four winds. Lelouch hadn't been there, stuck on the outer edge of the settlement due to another of his chess games, but Nunnally… There was not even a body to bury, the tornado having left no trace of her.

Inside the _Gawain_, she'd found the one person who annoyed her even worse than Lelouch – C.C. Specifically, she found her as she was trying to push out the Knightmare's controls from where they'd collapsed inward and run her torso through. In spite of herself, Kallen had come out of the _Guren_ with her first aid kit, offering to give her some morphine so at least her final moments were relatively painless. The sharp-tongued _gaijin_ girl, whom many presumed and derided as Zero's mistress, just waved her away, oozing annoyance.

"Shouldn't you be off helping your friends?" she chided in her unemotional manner, nearly provoking Kallen to stab the ungrateful bitch in the eye with the hypo she'd prepared. "With both Zero and the _Gawain_ out of operation, the _Guren_ will be more needed than ever."

True, but at this point, Kallen had to admit she wouldn't be of help for long. After fighting Suzaku, the _Guren_ was running on fumes basically. Furthermore, the last radio report she'd received was that an energy filler station they'd thrown together was being abandoned, the Britannians having organized a counteroffensive in the wake of Gottwald's attack. The _Siegfried_ had proven to be a harbinger of a series of setbacks, a domino effect that, without Zero and his ability to adapt and strategize on the fly, they weren't able to stop.

All such thoughts had flown from her head as, freed of the keyboard lodged in her abdomen, C.C.'s rib cage made muffled snapping and grinding sounds as it popped back into place, the usually unemotional girl gasping as her lungs reinflated. Similarly, a badly twisted leg unbent itself, while numerous gashes and abrasions closed at an accelerated pace. Within moments, weeks' worth of healing had occurred like sped-up video footage right before Kallen's startled eyes.

"We don't get along, but it seems we now have much to talk about," C.C. had deadpanned. And boy did they ever.

In the time since then, much had been explained or uncovered…

C.C. was an immortal, one of a handful of people in the world possessing a rejuvenation "Code" that made sure their bodies never aged and always regenerated from injury, even when fatal. These Codes could be passed along to apprentices who had been given a Geass, a psychic power that differed from person to person. Lelouch had a Geass, a kind of super-hypnosis that enabled him to order anyone to do anything once. Lelouch was Zero, seeking vengeance for his mother's murder and his sister's disfigurement. Lelouch was a prince. The Emperor was his father. The Emperor had a Geass too, and had wiped out Lelouch's memory of being a prince, of being Zero, of having a sister.

… while other, more pressing questions had been left unanswered.

Which part of him was real, and the other false? Was it a little of both? Was the withdrawn, intelligent-but-lazy cynic she'd slapped once been his true mask? Was Zero a means for him to reveal his true heart and mind without reproach? Was her and the Black Knights' loyalty real, or a result of his Geass? Was it all a play for the throne, or did he really intend to disband the Empire, allow the Japanese – the people of all Areas, in fact – to take their land back? Did any of this matter to him anymore now that his sister was dead?

It certainly didn't matter to him now with his brains scrambled. So, throwing caution to the wind, Kallen had taken the opportunity to gauge Lelouch's reaction after bumping into him.

"I'm terribly sorry!" she cried out, adopting a fearful tone as if scared he would beat her right then and there for her negligence. She backed it up by bowing her head before dropping to her knees, attempting to clean up her mess just a little too submissively.

As she made to wipe away the spill on his pants leg – _The perfect opportunity to plant the bug on him,_ a part of her mind reminded her – he joined her on the floor, actually helping to collect the broken glass around them. "No, it's fine. Don't worry." His tone wasn't exactly consoling, but neither did he snap at her for being clumsy.

_Well, that's a checkmark in his favor,_ she thought. _Also, he's not being a letch like Rivalz would,_ noting with satisfaction that his eyes hadn't dipped at all, even with the supposed cigarette lighter nestled between her "stun _tonfas_" to draw attention.

In fact, despite her being a lowly Eleven bunny-girl, he maintained eye contact with her like a person. Dim memories of a story Shirley had once told her, about a fender bender Lelouch had witnessed, played in the back of her mind for some reason.

Continuing, she reminded him, differentially of course, that she was an Eleven, while he was a Britannian, and her actions were inexcusable. Her voice was unwavering, even as she felt a chill run up her back. While she hadn't replicated her stepmother's tone of voice, the familiar words had come out of her own mouth all too easily.

"All the more reason to excuse you," Lelouch responded. By way of explanation, he added, "I hate having a social class held over you like a sword."

_You should really be sticking the tracer on him,_ her ego reproached her _sotto voce_, while her id and superego egged her on for varying reasons. The former just wanted her to drag out playing the sexy servant girl before her former leader, while the latter wished to continue an analysis of Lelouch and his motives.

She would have expected a prince, if he ever said such things, to do so with every word dipped in magnanimity for all to hear. Instead, Lelouch had spoken directly to her and was matter-of-fact about it, as with any discussion between two people. There was a hint of personal egalitarianism to be sure, but with a somewhat pleading tone. As a member of the rulers speaking to the ruled, he was probably trying hard to show himself as not being one of Them who was responsible for her plight.

Princess Euphemia had spoken much the same way back at Ashford Academy when she'd announced her plan to create a community with full citizenship promised to all inhabitants. By that time, she'd learned Zero's true identity, that of her long-lost half-brother, while they'd been stuck on Kamine Island, and her presence on campus had been part of a clandestine visit with Nunnally. Truth be told, when Kallen first learned this from C.C., the revelation had only added to the pile of things that, to say the least, she viewed suspiciously where the Pink Princess was concerned.

_Had she really done it for the Japanese people, or was it just a place where she can live with her missing siblings, and her knighted boy-toy, out of sight from her disapproving sister?_ It wasn't much of an improvement over initial beliefs that the entire S.A.Z. had just been a massive scam.

The Special Administrative Zone of Japan had been advertised as a fully-furbished planned community with suburban housing subdivisions, a hospital, and a combination city hall and community center, among other amenities. It was almost complete, its grand opening just a week or so away, when the typhoon had struck.

Thirty-two hours of monsoon-like weather later, and Euphemia's experimental prototype community of tomorrow looked like it had been abandoned for a hundred years. The park was a massive mud pit with uprooted trees and shrubbery. Houses leaned badly, many ready to just fall over. The streets and sidewalks were riddled with cracks, softened and crumbling due to the rain. Worst of all was the community center, which had been partially swallowed by a sinkhole. The one thing missing were creeping vines and tangles of weeds everywhere in sight.

It was only afterwards, the looters and scavengers coming back from the ruins with everything from top-of-the-line medical equipment to piles of brand-new plumbing and copper wiring torn from the housing areas, that the truth became apparent. Euphemia had been completely upfront and genuine about the S.A.Z., but the developers trusted with laying foundations and other first stage construction had screwed her over, taking her money and using subpar material. Regardless of her opinion of the S.A.Z., and popular rumor colored it as doubtful to say the least, Cornelia would surely have seen heads roll for this if given the chance. Nobody fucked her sister and got away with it.

None of this was known at the time, however. All anyone knew for sure was that the S.A.Z. had toppled like a house of cards, and it was only by chance it had happened before people had moved in. The zone's ruination had caused all the conflicts surrounding it to boil over, whether they'd been internal or external.

The S.A.Z. had sharply divided the Japanese, the civilian community and insurgent groups alike. Success or failure, authentic or a trap, all these options and more were argued about. Even the Black Knights were divided, Tamaki loudly declaring they should just bomb the place while Tohdoh sagely voted they wait and see. Ohgi, surprisingly, had been quite interested in it… when no one was looking. He'd been acting off for awhile, and there was scuttlebutt that he'd met a girl.

"Or a guy," some joked, considering how guarded he was.

Kallen, particularly, was torn about the whole thing. The S.A.Z., one-half of her argued, would allow her to live as Kozuki Kallen as she wanted to, alongside her birth mother, without recrimination. The other half argued it was a gilded cage, that she'd become a half-breed unwanted and virtually a criminal outside its borders. Other divisions within herself appeared as she pondered where this would leave those who couldn't apply, whether she was betraying Naoto's beliefs, if it meant Zero was wrong and Suzaku had been right, if this meant the lives of the people she'd accidentally killed at Narita would, as she feared, become meaningless.

Then there was the zone's patron herself. In Kallen's opinion, Euphemia was a stupid, sheltered girl. She had created the S.A.Z. as another one of her charities, not penitence for her country's actions towards the Numbers. And she was that evil bitch Cornelia's sister, and had to be just like her in the right circumstances.

She was also willing to sacrifice herself in exchange for Milly and her friends, strangers to her, when Kusakabe's men started killing hostages. She had appealed to Zero, her brother's confessed murderer, to help make the S.A.Z. a reality. She had stolen a Portman and fled into a warzone when Suzaku's superior had attempted to use him as a pawn sacrifice to kill Zero, saving both of them.

_She's a princess… a gorgeous, Britannian princess. Pert and firm in all the right places, perfumed just so to smell naturally of jasmine,_ the whispers out of the darkest corners of Kallen's mind had taunted. _Not a mongrel street fighter who smells of day-old sweat and motor oil from working on Knightmares. Who spends her time off doing arm curls._

_And she'd spent all night long with Zero on Kamine-_jima_, while you were a prisoner of that fathead Suzaku,_ they continued. _He already has C.C., but hey, in the dark, I'm sure she felt just the same. Warm and supple, the waves crashing and rolling rhythmically along the beach as they—_

Considering what she knew about Lelouch and Euphemia now, that last bit seemed highly unlikely. At the time, however, Kallen's inner-Shirley had placed one very large black mark on her list of the princess's pros and cons. It was almost been a relief when her heard the S.A.Z. had turned out to be a massive fire trap, joining all the other damage the Japanese had suffered.

Heavy rain and winds had caused buildings in various ghettoes to finally collapse, many of them still occupied with squatters. Flooding along the coastlines had added to these casualties, with hundreds of people drowning. The Japanese all had to look to themselves during this time, the emergency services concentrated solely on what little damage occurred in Britannian sections. To Kallen, the only real damage the Britannians had to complain about was the damage at Ashford Academy, along with some mudslides at Narita, where patches of earth were still settling after the avalanche she'd caused months before.

Temperatures were already flaring when reports on the S.A.Z. came in, tipping the scales. The Japanese, herself included, wanted their pound of flesh, and Zero was in the mood to give it to them. Delivering a speech on television which denounced Britannia for the destruction it caused both deliberately and from sheer indifference – statements Kallen now saw were filled with subtext from his personal life – Zero then launched the Black Rebellion.

Now, a year later, the whole thing had taken a different shade, at least where Euphemia stood. Not that there was anything to do about it. After having been crucified as "Princess Macerate" by the rioters and rebels alike, saying "I'm sorry" sounded contrite. That is, if one could find her, both li Britannia sisters having disappeared. Cornelia was supposed to be back in Africa, lying in wait for when the Empire announced its next big push against Europe. Rumors persisted, however, that she was secretly still in Pendragon, where she was undergoing therapy after her fight with Zero, and may have even been institutionalized.

Things were even worse for Euphemia. There had never been any news about her after it was reported she'd landed safely in the former Hawaiian Islands, having been sent out of Area 11 just prior to the uprising. Some said she was under house arrest for having indirectly incited the Elevens to riot. Others held that she'd been tossed out on the streets, having renounced her titles in return for permission by the Emperor to pursue the S.A.Z. project.

_The only sure thing is that "Sir" Suzaku isn't with her,_ Kallen noted. _He's betrayed her too, becoming the Emperor's attack dog in hopes of becoming Knight of One someday._ Part of her hoped that Suzaku would somehow succeed, just so she could be the first to spit in his eye when the conquering hero returned home.

She pushed all that back as she returned to her analysis of Lelouch. His behavior was a far cry from the lazy student she'd known before, the laconic know-it-all who'd supposedly shared his views on the world after their encounter with a Japanese hot dog vender being harassed in the park.

"That Eleven we saw back there could tell you… he could lead a better life as long as he bows his head to Britannia," he'd said.

With that, she popped him one, exclaiming she thought there may have been more to him, but she was wrong.

_Was I wrong?_ she thought. Using his own words as fuel, she then delivered the _coup de grace_. "It doesn't matter. The powerless have no choice but to bear their lot in life. Regardless if their oppressor is wrong."

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't push your values on me," he retorted, a warning tone in his voice. "I'm not interested."

"I beg your pardon," she said. _Damn! Did I go too far? Or was he trying to shush me before I got into trouble?_ Deciding they could talk more after they'd snatched Lelouch, she produced the tracer from one of her cufflinks and, hiding it from view with a flip of her hand towel, moved to…

A meaty hand suddenly grabbed Kallen by her hair, yanking her back away from Lelouch as the bug fell from her grasp. For a moment, she was afraid it was building security, having found that _hentai_ who'd pinched her. Then she saw who was manhandling her and wished that was all she had to worry about.

The suit was made of expensive material and pristinely cut. Nevertheless, it was an ugly mud brown color, and didn't really match the rest of his ensemble. That, plus the goatee and bad dye-job that had turned his hair mustard yellow, identified the creep filling her nostrils with his cigar-breath. The Black King, the underboss responsible for organized crime in Area 11, who sometimes made Babel Tower his home away from home.

_Today? Now of all times?!_ she mentally shrieked.

"Let me take a look at you," he rumbled at her without preamble. She could practically feel his eyes on her breasts as he looked down the front of what was laughably called her top. "Hmm, nice goods you've got here," he drawled, although he didn't seem to be speaking directly to her.

A sycophantic voice made Kallen glance over the Black King's shoulder. Sure enough, there was the casino's weasely manager standing nearby as he responded all too happily that they had an excellent crop of "bunnies" today. Indeed, a few yards away were a trio of Eleven slave-girls, standing in the shadow of two bruisers, the crime lord's bodyguards. Their skimpy "uniforms" now accented with leather handcuffs, they each had their heads bowed in frightened acceptance of their fate. It was more than enough for her to silently vow that, Lelouch or no Lelouch, she would see both of these bastards dead if it took her a thousand years.

And so, here she was – her objective literally within arm's reach, while she was being ogled up one side and down the other by this jumped-up thug.

As the Black King crushed some walnuts in his hand in a gaudy display of strength, Kallen started thinking hard and quick on whether to tap the emergency code on her earpiece, signaling Urabe to attack early if possible. Fortunately, as the mobster started quoting the Emperor's Social Darwin nonsense like they were best buddies, nearly provoking her to take a swing at him anyway, Lelouch spoke up.

"What an arrogant display. Feeding upon the weak are you?" he said while the O.S.I.'s substitute for Nunna-_chan_ tried to hold him back, leaving Kallen to her fate.

The back-and-forth between the two, the self-styled Black King and the long-lost Black Prince, quickly escalated into a chess challenge as the big gorilla's grip on her hair loosened, almost enough for Kallen to slip out of her headdress and retrieve the tracer-bug. Lelouch had just opened up his chess-carrying case when the lights suddenly went out, plunging the casino into darkness.

As everyone else looked around in surprise, a few slot machine-addicts shrilly yelling in distress, Kallen looked up at the windows, half-expecting Burais to come crashing through.

_Did Urabe hear me in trouble? Is he attacking now?_ she wondered. _No… he would have given me a warning first. So what's going on? _

It was then the first light bulb suddenly flashed and exploded.

* * *

Urabe let out an oath he'd only heard sailors use before as he looked at the readout on Babel Tower.

His factsphere was picking up an area of Babel Tower, over a hundred yards in every direction from the middle of the casino section, where the automated systems had suddenly gone haywire. Lighting and power, air conditioning, elevators… they'd all gone down at once, only to jolt back to life, the power readings going so far up they were in danger of overloading. Then they dropped again. Up and down they all went in sequences, the display showing them like waves that flowed over and around one another.

_A miscalibrated Gefjun disturber?_ he wondered, grasping at straws. Rakshata Chawla had never taken time to explain how her device worked, and like everyone else, he'd been satisfied just knowing that it did work. _Another thing about her I should have pursued when I had the chance._

Whatever was happening, it didn't reach the roof, so he and the Black Knights were safe for the moment. Ordering his men to stand their ground, he contacted the airship to talk to C.C.

Or rather, he tried to. C.C. failed to respond for a minute. He was about to leave his Gekka and run to the control cabin when the line opened up.

"_Urabe?"_

He quirked an eyebrow at C.C.'s labored voice, addressing him by name for the first time in a year. He could almost picture her, sprawled out weakly in the pilot's seat, panting as sweat dripped down her brow. He was rather close, having left out where the Geass sigil on her forehead, representing her Code, had unexpectedly flared to life.

"C.C., we—"

"_Is there… something happening… in the casino?"_ she asked. _"Something odd?" _

Her voice was as marked with annoyance as it was with pain. Torture and blows to the head was one thing, but headaches were something she'd hadn't worried about for centuries. Now, in the past year, she'd suffered a migraine twice.

Alone in the airship's cabin, the immortal girl muttered to herself – "This _can't_ go on" – as she continued to vainly massage her temples.

* * *

_What is this? What's happening? _What_!? _

On the verge of panicking, Lelouch dove beneath a craps table, taking cover as the diminutive maelstrom overran the inside of the skyscraper. From relative safety, he looked out over the floor of the casino, now almost empty save for some patrons and employees who'd done the same as he, taking refuge underneath tables or behind slot machines and furniture. A few fools were actually taking the chance to scoop up abandoned cash, chips, or coins, even as cyclonic blasts of air, seemingly from the out of control A.C. vents, lashed at them.

Across the way, he spied the bunny-girl with the magenta hair using her platter like a shield as she crouched beside a large potted fern.

"Stay… right… there!" she could be heard yelling at him over the din. Irreverently, it occurred to yell back that taking cover beneath a tree in a storm was a good way to get struck by lightning.

_What is it with her?_ he wondered. Was she following him because she saw in him a way out as a possible owner? If so, it was a bad plan, in his estimation. Even if he could get away with purchasing her from Babel Tower, he'd never be allowed to keep her in the clubhouse. _And what would happen if I tried to sneak her in? Milly would never let me hear the end of it if she found out I was secretly keeping a girl in my room._

Just as he was about to wonder why the notion of hiding a girl in his room felt familiar, an arc of electricity blazed overhead not more than twelve feet from him.

"Shit! It's getting worse!" he yelled out, half in exclamation, half as a warning to anyone within earshot.

At first, this chaos had been welcome, a good distraction so he and Rolo could get out of here. While he'd been certain he could play circles around the garrulous gangster, this entire expedition had begun to look like a bust. Babel Tower – it was too flashy, too noisy, too offensive to the eyes. The blackout had been a blessing.

Then everything had flared on back to life. Ten times life, in fact. Pandemonium broke out as the lights turned into miniature suns before their bulbs exploded, showering heated glass fragments over the crowds spread around the area. Others jolted on and off, altogether or in patterns, forming hypnotic spectacles or strobe effects that induced nausea and vomiting.

The lights were not alone. The fire alarm switched on and off, while white noise screeched over the P.A. system. The sprinklers were just as erratic, although in combination with the lights they did fill the wide open areas with a pleasant rainbow effect now and again.

The elevators were partially affected by whatever systems crash was going on, as they seemed to either automatically stall out or continue moving up and down their shafts normally, even though the floor display now lit up numbers at random. Most certainly affected were the elevator doors, which opened and slammed shut repeatedly like metal Venus flytraps. This had the effect of scaring people into using the stairways like they were supposed to for a change, especially after the manager practically jumped through an open set of doors without looking first. His scream echoed up the shaft for nearly a full minute, ending with a wet and chunky-sounding thud.

Whatever the cause was, anything electrical was affected, even the gambling equipment. The automatic shufflers created momentary clouds of playing cards. The slot machines spat out their contents to either the horror or delight of the gamblers, depending on the coins' velocity, while their reels spun so wildly smoke was coming out. Impossibly, Lelouch had even seen one or two of the berserk one-armed bandits somehow sucking coins in like vacuum cleaners. Meanwhile, roulette wheels spun like helicopter rotors, no doubt due to the formerly well-hidden devices on them that now sparked dangerously.

_Rigged? Nnnoo-ooo-ooo,_ he thought sarcastically upon seeing that. Choosing to ignore the neo-Luddite wet dream happening before him, Lelouch swept his eyes across the floor around him. He could still see the bunny-girl and a few other patrons, both those trying to ride the storm out and a few pitiful souls who'd been trampled in the panic. Thankfully, none of them more an Ashford uniform.

He frowned, as that gave him less encouragement than he'd hoped. When everything started going mad, he'd immediately turned back to Rolo, ignoring the drama he'd been dragged into with the Black King. However, they'd gotten separated almost immediately, packs of frightened people running between them. At first, he'd been able to see Rolo standing on the other side of the mob, then it was as if he'd disappeared, the artificial storm within Babel making a jump in intensity at the same time.

"Artificial storm" wasn't a half-bad description of what was happening, as a whirlwind seemed to be forming within the center of the casino. He couldn't help but compare it to the typhoon from a year ago, albeit in miniature. The localized weather, in conjunction with the rainbows brought about by the combined dazzling lights and spraying water, reminded Lelouch of the deluge suffered by Noah and its aftermath.

_Did God decide making everyone talk differently again wouldn't cut it?_ he asked himself, thinking back to the casino's biblical namesake. He then decided to forego anymore flippant conjecture as another lightning arc occurred too close for comfort, followed by another.

Then another one.

Then two arcs at once.

Three arcs…

Bolts of electricity were now filling the air, emerging from empty light bulb sockets, plug outlets, and the still frantic machines around him. They crisscrossed over an area not more than a few yards from him. This same spot was now host to a whirlwind that had coalesced from the turbulence that had a moment before been spread across the casino.

"What the hell?" Lelouch muttered, spellbound. In spite of himself, he crawled out from under the table, dimly aware that the cacophony of out of control machinery and lights was dying out even as the marriage of air and electricity evolved before him.

With one last burst of activity, multiple electrical streams swamped the column of air, suffusing it even as their sources went silent. For a moment there was just a column of white light, then it broke up into dust-sized motes, each a different shade of color, that started coming together, twirling about each other as they assembled. A complicated process to be sure, but still the polychromatic dust – his sense of maturity refused to use the word "sparkles" – within moments had coalesced into a single form with mass, texture, contours, and dimension.

In short, a girl of about middle school age materialized out of thin air right in front of him, standing straight with her eyes closed, as if in a trance.

From a distance, Lelouch heard the bunny waitress as she emitted a loud gasp of surprise. _Not every day this sort of thing happens,_" he thought, agreeing less demonstratively.

As he scrutinized the girl, one look at her feet showed where her magic act wasn't finished just yet.

Her footwear looked much like a video game designer's idea of futuristic combat wear. Structurally speaking, they were reminiscent of the sandals that gladiators wore in Roman epics – a series of interlocking straps and cords reaching up to the knee from a sole. Only instead of leather, they were solid bands and patches of crystal, as if carved from one massive red gemstone. Rather than actually glowing, they shimmered as if catching and reflecting light while on display. In-between these bands of crystal, the girl's socks could be plainly seen, which Lelouch absently noted were plum-colored.

Even more phantasmagorical were lines of light, like a series of luminescent tattoos, adorning her legs. They were thin but glowed with intensity, visible even through her socks, disappearing from sight only beneath the girl's skirt. They were in groups of close-knit parallel lines that angled slightly together, or freestanding circles. With a start, Lelouch realized they looked exactly like the copper pathways and via-holes on a circuit board.

These lines faded away as the separate bits of crystal began to collapse upon each other, filling up the spaces between them as they shifted down towards her feet. They also lost their hard, crystalline appearance, becoming opaque as well as bulging out slightly, their texture becoming more like the cushioning layers that went into athletic shoes. Indeed, in no time the gem-like combat boots had transformed into a pair of comfy-looking high-top sneakers. Silver hued, the one reminder of their former appearance was a ruby-like disk, standing out from the ankle like an unmarked dial.

The girl's appearance and the transformation of her footwear had all happened in just over a minute. It had been met with the casino returning to normal, with even the last of the winds dispersing. Having noted all of this, Lelouch turned his scrutiny on the girl herself.

As he'd originally guessed, she looked to be around fifteen, just a hair over five feet, her chest showing only mild development. Her hair was an ash-brown mane that flowed from her head in well-combed waves past her waist. She had a wide, slightly heart-shaped face that was still in repose. Her expression and general bearing could have been described as cherubic if he were the religious type. As it was, Lelouch had the oddest feeling that he should know her.

Her clothes were certainly familiar. They were the uniform of Ashford's middle school division: A pink gymslip with a pleated skirt, worn with a white blouse and a plum necktie decorated with the Ashford family emblem. They were clean and freshly pressed, but to Lelouch's discerning eyes, he could see where they'd had a rough life, as if they'd been worn constantly for months at a time.

The skirt was faded in patches, and he could see the hem had been repaired after becoming threadbare. Almost hidden in one of the folds was where the skirt had been cut vertically, perhaps to give her extra mobility, and later sown back together. Here and there, however well-cleaned, were signs of stains, burn marks, maybe ve one or two blood spots that he could see. Most of the decorative buttons on the front had been replaced, and the way light bounced off the new ones, he wondered if they might not be real gold. Most of the embroidered _fleur-de-lis_ had been plucked off her necktie, leaving only the central upper petal, looking much like a four-sided diamond by itself.

Her blouse was the only article of clothing still crisp, white, and undamaged. Based upon the minute differences in design, however, Lelouch imagined it was a replacement for the original.

She carried just two items with her. One was a battered satchel bag, typical for a student, clutched in a hand. The other, a very ratty-looking grey bundle held in the crook of her arm. This bundle then began to move, stretching while its mouth split in an impossibly wide yawn. It then jumped down to the floor and sniffed its way over to a dropped tumbler lying on the floor, where it began happily licking a large ice cube sitting in a puddle of liquor. The "sack," he realized, was a cat.

A grey cat with a black spot over its right eye.

"Arthur?!" Lelouch called out, amazed to see the little furball alive after an entire year. The tom cat, for his part, just looked up at him, meowed back unenthusiastically, and went back to lapping at his chilly treat.

"Lelouch?" he heard a quiet voice say hesitantly.

Pulling his attention from the long-missing pet, Lelouch looked up back at the girl. Her eyes were open now. They were big and a shade of violet, deeper than his, verging on indigo. And they were staring straight at him.

Too late, he realized by his automatic response to his name, he'd identified himself – not always the smartest thing to do – as her face broke into an immense smile. He thought quick of an idea on how to convince her otherwise, but saying the first and a half syllables of "young lady" was as far as he got.

Letting loose an ecstatic squeal of delight, several decibels above anything by his fan-girls back at the academy, the girl dropped her satchel as she charged at him, crossing over the few feet between them with her arms outstretched. Said arms wrapped around his neck as she leapt over the last yard, combining the grace of a ballet dancer with the kinetic force of a linebacker as she tackled him to the floor. Whacking the back of his head, he saw just stars before his eyes as the girl peppered his face, his forehead, even the tip of his nose with a flurry of short kisses.

The strange girl pulled him up into a sitting position as she continued hugging him, laughing joyously in his ear. She stopped momentarily as she pulled back, twisting his head this way and that as she took in his face and his profile.

"You've hardly changed at all," she commented enigmatically before she broke out into peals of laughter again, yanking his neck back into her well-meaning chokehold.

Lelouch, for his part, was beginning to feel dangerously like a puppy being hugged to death by an exuberant child who didn't know their own strength. "You're hurting me," he muttered weakly in response. "Put me down, please."

At first he thought she might have heard him as she started crying softly, first a few sniffles, then outright sobs. She began wiping her face on her sleeve as she again held him as arm's length. No child psychologist, he could still tell these were just indicators, the tip of the emotional iceberg she was trying to control.

"They brought me to you, Lelouch. I asked to go home and they brought me to _you_," she said between whimpers. She stopped to take a massive inhale through her nose, accompanied naturally by rather gross mucous sounds, as she tried to end the waterworks before she continued.

"I was lost, so far away for so long. And no matter who I met and how nice they were, I just wanted to go home! And that's with you, Lelouch. You and Milly and Miss Sayoko and all our friends! I know you've always wanted to go back to Pendragon, back to the villa. But that's not home. Not because we were banned from there, no more than the storehouse at the shrine or our rooms in the clubhouse were home because we were allowed there."

She stopped to stifle another crying jag, wiping her eyes again before continuing, her eyes filled with some earnest need to talk, to share some inner truth with him before she forgot it.

"Home… isn't a place – a set place – that can be taken from you. And it can't just be given to you either. It's not a floor with walls and rooms where you eat and sleep. It's all about knowing… knowing who you are and what you're doing and where you're needed, and who will be right alongside of you, believing in you. As long as you know that, then you're home wherever you are. I know that now. Home really _is_ where the heart is, Lelouch, and there's no place like home."

Her eyes had started streaming again as she'd said so, tears she no longer held back as she settled against him, resting her head in the crook of Lelouch's neck. He could hardly do more than automatically fold his arms over her back, patting gently as she let it all out, never minding the damp mess she was making over his shoulder.

Rightfully, Lelouch should have been more concerned with trying to decipher the bits and pieces she'd laid down about her supposed connection with him. The gibberish about living in a storehouse or a villa in the imperial capital, which he'd never even visited before. But he'd been so transfixed by her, taken aback by her emotional declaration, that he'd just sat back, allowing her to talk.

Around them, he could see the gamblers and other parasites who'd bedded down through the storm were now coming out of the woodwork. A few had stopped and stared at them for a moment before continuing their plunder, confident the security cameras were offline. He was uncertain if they'd seen the girl appear or not, but all the same she seemed to hold little import to them. Lelouch, for his part, was uncertain whether to feel embarrassed or oddly touched by her display, however misdirected it was at him. He wished he could think of anything consoling, however trite, to say as she cried herself dry.

When she finally composed herself, the girl lifted her head and started looking around herself curiously. Her eyes widened as she finally took notice of where she was. Lights were now flickering on normally, and slot machines had started playing their synthesized siren's call, as whatever hadn't overloaded slowly sprang back to life. After taking in the devastated casino, she fixed him with a perplexed look.

"That being said," she began, "why are we in Las Vegas?"

Looking into her eyes, reddened with tears but still hauntingly beautiful, innocent yet filled with boundless confidence in him, there was only one natural response for Lelouch to give her:

"Who the hell are you?"

* * *

**Britannian Homeland, 2018 a.t.b. **

Like oversized divots on a golf course, the landscape was broken with patches of torn-up earth, reminders of the bizarre contraption skipping along the ground as it came to a juddering halt. Considering how it had appeared out of nowhere, almost in the stratosphere, before going into a nosedive towards _terra firma_, it should be considered a miracle it hadn't simply crashed, splattering itself and its all too flesh and bone occupant all over the countryside.

Bug-like, it looked like a small, two-man ornithopter, but the wings were different. More like the pylons of an outrigger boat, they were festooned with what looked like oversized turn indicators. Very strange wings... to most people. Pilots of the ever-growing number of flight-enabled Knightmare Frames would have identified them easily as some early prototype of a Float system apparatus.

With a loud pop, its canopy shot about a hundred feet into the air before crashing to the earth a safe, or safe enough, distance away. No longer restrained, a cloud of smoke emerged from the cockpit, followed closely by an elderly man. Coughing horribly, he lurched himself over the side, slid down the upturned earth, and stumbled away from the strange craft as he tried to find breathable air. Snatching a handkerchief from his coat pocket, he waved it in front of his face as his lungs slowly cleared.

The afore-mentioned coat was… unusual, as were the rest of his clothing. It was a three-piece suit made of rich material, complete with a top hat that had fallen to the ground in the man's mad dash for oxygen. It was also noticeably out of date by at least thirty years, and the design was slightly off, as if the tailor had made it based on a description of fashions at the time. Furthermore, what wasn't black was some shade or another of green, arranged to flow nicely together, even the spats on his shoes. A golden fob watch held along his vest and a pince-nez dangling from his lapel completed the look. Incongruously, even for this set of clothes, was a worn pair of aviator's goggles over his eyes.

This last item he pulled off his head as his coughing fit subsided. Satisfied he was not about to asphyxiate, the man stood up, straightening his tie, brushing off his clothes, and perching the spectacles upon his nose, all with a majestic air.

"A perfect, ten-point landing," he said to no one in particular, his voice dripping with self-satisfaction.

Turning back to what could only be described as a crash site, he began looking around on the ground. Seeing his hat, he picked it up and began cleaning the dirt from it as he continued looking around him. His brushing became harsher as a frown broke out on his face.

"Where are you, damn it?" he muttered, looking as though he was about to get down on his hands and knees to look for a contact lens.

He jumped as a spark erupted off of one of the battered vessel's wing-like pylons, now badly bent. Looking up at it, he let loose an anxious cry before scrambling up the short embankment to the cockpit, his hat falling back to the ground unnoticed. Just as fire began emerging from the seams of the instrument panel within, he snatched out two pieces of baggage that had been left behind. One was a large plastic tube case with a strap, the other a hand-woven knapsack.

The knapsack, filled with provisions, he simply tossed out while the other he hugged to his chest as he slid down the mound of dirt again, unmindful of the mess he was making of his clothes. Grabbing both the sack and his hat as he passed them, he jogged a few yards away as fire began to consume the small cockpit. Gasping for breath again, he dropped the knapsack on the forest floor, followed by the case which he gently laid down like it was a sleeping baby.

"Young Nunnally would never forgive me if I lost you," he said to the case, a playfully admonishing tone in his voice, as he again fussed over his clothes. "I imagine she's fit to be tied as it is, the way I snuck off without her," he added with a rueful chuckle.

In retrospect, he'd been far more than an old humbug; no, he'd been an outright bastard, risking the life of that poor girl. Her only crime was finding herself in the same predicament as he and his wife had a lifetime ago. He should have just taken her in and revealed all at the beginning, who he was, and why he hadn't – couldn't, really – return home.

Instead, he continued his ruse of being some borderline deity as he did with everyone else. He told her to give up ever returning to Earth and her brother, and to instead make a new life for herself, just as he had. When she insisted, he'd tried to scare her by demanding she perform a task even Hercules would've been hard-pressed to pull off in return for his aid. Worse, he hadn't lifted a finger when he first learned that his satanic scavenger hunt had sent her straight to that salamandrine succubus…

He paused a moment, taking that last sentence apart. Along the line, he'd also acquired an addiction to alliteration, apparently. Shaking his head, he dismissed the whole line of thought as counterproductive.

_I can't go back to the past. That's not a choice, not for me, not for anyone. Not even the denizens of that strange world. I risked Nunnally's life before, and there's no undoing what's already been done. All I can do is try to make amends, and avoid repeating my mistakes. And so, I had no choice but to leave her behind. _

While he was sure his repaired testing craft was sky-worthy, and that the S.O.A.R. components were in working order, there was no guarantee the journey would be safe. Piercing the veil between worlds had almost caused it to overheat and explode the first time, and as for a safe landing… Well, his beloved wife could attest that was all a matter of luck as well. Looking at his ship, now so much scrap metal, it was plain he'd made the right choice.

He would contact Lord Ashford and bring to him the information and data he'd gathered, glancing at the priceless case by his feet at the thought. Inside was the flight recorder's hard drive, as well as numerous notes and scrolls where he'd jotted ideas, formulae, and theories over the years. Everything they needed to build a stronger S.O.A.R.-enabled craft, one capable of making a round trip, as soon as humanly possible.

Until then, Nunnally was sure to be a guest of honor in any household in the realm. She'd want for nothing, and her band of friends and allies would look after her, just as she had helped them.

"That being said," he muttered, flexing his leg, "it might be a good idea to bring some body armor for our reunion." His knee still ached from when she'd kicked him after that blasted cat of hers had unveiled his control room.

Looking this way and that, the elderly man tried to take a measure of the immediate area, but nothing jumped out at him. It had been too much to hope for that he would land back in Ashfordshire. So long as he hadn't landed on the estate of some prickly noble who'd accuse him of poaching or some nonsense like that, however, he'd be fine.

Drolly, he took his goggles and pulled them over his top hat, settling them over the hat band, before placing it on his head, tilted at a rakish angle. Pulling out a compass, he took a minute to determine which way was north. Satisfied, he then picked up his bags and started walking in a random direction, taking care to set a steady pace for himself. With his spindly frame, he'd never been what one would call athletic, and years of soft-living were unlikely to have improved things.

As he trudged along, he considered whether Nunnally was all he planned a return trip for. There were his wife's remains to consider, after all. Weighing factors, he eventually decided against it. Truly his better half, she'd already gone through too much as the wife of a card shark, a stage magician (_Ambroise the Amazing!_), and finally an obscenely well-paid research scientist for a similarly-tempered nobleman. An eternal rest, even one so far from her birthplace, was the least he owed her.

Besides, for all their closeness to Lord Ashford, they were still commoners. The mausoleum he'd had built for her was so far afield of what she could have expected for a grave back home, it wasn't even funny. All he needed was to visit it, offer prayers, and lay flowers there one last time.

_I should bring_ her _along too,_ he thought, his mood increasingly melancholy. _It's not right for a child to be denied the chance to say goodbye to their mother, however long-delayed._

His daughter. His mood shifted little at the thought of seeing her again after so very long a time. He worried if she even remembered him, though, his little girl.

"'_Little_ girl'? Oh, Ambroise, even to yourself you're a humbug," he said in self-reproach.

Out of another pocket came a small makeup mirror, his sole memento of his wife. Flipping it open, he stopped to examine himself. His face, thin with a tapering chin to begin with, was gaunt and lined with age. His hair, once silky and black, was now stringy and practically white. So too were his delicate eyebrows, his moustache and goatee combination. Only his eyes, a shade of violet that teetered on indigo, were as bright and sharp as ever.

There was no escaping it. Almost forty years had gone by since his experiment had gone awry. He was an old fart now, and his daughter was doubtlessly not so little anymore.

A thought then occurred that made him smile again. _If Reuben's done even a half-decent job as her godfather, by now Marianne should be married with children of her own. _

His mood now much lighter, Ambroise Lamperouge – gambler, illusionist, scientist, king of an entire world, charlatan, grandfather – began whistling a jaunty tune as he continued to stroll towards civilization. Things were finally starting to look up.

**END OF CHAPTER 1**

* * *

Finally got it in the can: "Code Geass" meets "The Wizard of Oz". Or rather the aftermath of Nunnally's adventures there. For now anyway.

Naturally enough, I got the idea back when preview artwork for "Nunnally in Wonderland" first appeared. That led me to L. Frank Baum's quest-filled counter to Lewis Carroll's acid-trip fairy tale. Other driving forces have been the "Hobbit" movie series from Peter Jackson, as well as Disney's "Oz, the Great and Powerful", whose touch I hope can be felt in the epilogue. Additionally, "The Wiz" inspired Nunnally's little speech at the end, and yes, I got teary-eyed while writing it.

Originally, it was just a two or three-page snippet, with Lelouch going to Babel Tower, reminiscing over a tornado tearing up Ashford Academy as a prelude to the Black Rebellion, then Nunnally magically appearing before his unrecognizing eyes. When I wrote and expanded on this, I realized I'd done so much on the back story that Nunnally's reappearance and suggested Oz elements seemed to come out of left field. So the prologue was something of a last minute add-on; I already had the epilogue with the Wizard planned anyway, so I decided to make a bookend of it.

One factor that held back completion was wardrobe. Stupid, I know. Originally, I had the idea Nunnally would appear wearing a green, kimono-influenced dress (think the Silkmaiden mod from "Alice 2: Madness Returns") with embroidery that would shift like a hologram sticker. This changed to a duplicate of her "Wonderland" outfit but with green-and-purple colors, and John R. Neil's overlapping O-Z emblem in place of the cleavage keyhole. Finally, I decided she would just keep on wearing her school uniform, although it would be all ragged after months of wear and tear.

Of course, wardrobe included deciding what form the ruby slippers/silver shoes would take. I kept changing my mind, going from metallic sci-fi boots to something like Cinderella's glass slippers but now red. For a test chapter, I'm… willing to put up with what I chose, but I'm open to opinions and suggestions. (And that's my subtle way of asking for beta readers.)

Incidentally, this version of "CG" is not at all inspired by the "Oz the Reflection" spin-off, but then again, that has little-to-nothing to do with Baum's books either, from what I can tell.

-AstroCitizen

P.S. The idea of C.C. teaching Kallen a secret way to carry a gun was actually inspired by canon events, as Kallen pulls the hammerspace trick of reaching behind herself and producing a gun when she confronts Lelouch in the second episode of R2. BTW, if you were offended, than your imagination is probably even dirtier than mine is – I didn't say precisely how she did it, just inferred it was physically difficult then allowed Urabe to make wild suppositions.


End file.
